


After School Special

by bravelittlesoldier



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: BB's got a crush on their teacher and their teacher is NOT HAVING IT, Ben Solo is not soft...but he's a decent man, Big Bad Corporate Ben Solo, English Teacher Rey, F/M, Fluff, High School AU, NAH I TAKE IT BACK BEN SOLO IS THE SOFTEST, Non-Binary BB-8 (Star Wars), Reylo - Freeform, author speaks from experience on some of these things, i like my ben solo's to be softer than down and my reys to be hard as nails, in case you....didn't gather...., maybe some inappropriate stuff happens in a classroom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 14:57:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20744081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravelittlesoldier/pseuds/bravelittlesoldier
Summary: From this fabulous twitter prompt (s/o to @reylo_prompts, you beautiful basterds:D):—“BB has a severe crush on Miss Rey. As his teacher she feels compelled to talk to his parents. Little does she know that BB's daddies are both out of the country and instead she meets his godfather Ben, who apparently now also has a crush on her.”This was probably more for an elementary school soft vibe, but I teach high school soooo....





	1. Chapter 1

Rey wasn’t nervous about this meeting with BB’s guardian. Why should she be? She had nothing to be nervous about. 

Two weeks ago, Rey had laughed when BB asked her to the Back to School dance and Rey had gently said “I don’t think so,” to them in front of the entirety of her 4th-period class. For some reason, however, BB had taken this joke as a challenge.

“Who’re you going with to the dance, Miss?” BB had slickly tried to ask at lunch while she was on supervision a week later. They leaned against the basketball hoop, their braces and ginger curls shining in the September afternoon sun. 

“Not with you,” Rey had responded, loud enough to be heard by BB’s friends nearby. It was clear when that group of kids started shouting “OOOOOH!!!” that BB’s pride had been wounded. 

It was after this incident when things started to escalate. 

First, BB would raise their hand in class just to compliment Rey on her teaching. It was nice, yes, but then BB advanced to complimenting her jawline, her hair, her eyes. Rey had pulled BB outside and had a one on one conversation about how inappropriate this was. 

Then emails, first from their school account and then their private, to Rey. At all hours. Poems. One was even called “Ode to Ms. Sanderson, a total babe who is my BAE.” Once Rey had worked herself up to read the poems, they were mostly sweet and innocent. Some of them even had decent iambic pentameter, which made her feel like a good English teacher at least. 

Rey forwarded each message to the administration team and did not respond regardless. She did, however, send an email to BB’s parents. 

_ Hello, _

_ Your student, Bixby Dameron-Storm, has been engaging in some inappropriate behavior toward me. It’s nothing major, just professing their undying love for me and trying to ask me out on dates. I have said “no” to them with increasing degrees of firmness, had conversations with BB about the incidents, and alerted our administration. Please have a talk with your student about appropriate conduct in a professional and a school environment. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. Thanks, _

_ Rey Sanderson_

_11th Grade English_

_ Jakku Senior High School_

  
Rey’s stomach dropped when she had received a canned email not 30 seconds later. 

_ Hi, _

_ We’re on vacation and won’t be able to respond. If this is an emergency, please call us at our number listed in our signature. For any Bixby (BB) related issues, please contact their guardian at _ [ _ bsolo@firstorder.net _ ](mailto:bsolo@firstorder.net) _ . _

_Thanks!_

_ Poe Dameron and Finn Storm _

_ (555) 122 1201 _

Well, if the Dameron-Storms were on vacation, that probably explained why BB was acting this way. They needed attention. Rey could almost let it slide.

Until BB organized a whole HoCoPosal for her while she was on supervision the Monday before the Back to School dance. That was the last straw for Rey. 

_ Hi, _

_ This is Rey Sanderson from Jakku High School. I’m having some issues with BB constantly asking me out on dates and dances. I’ve done as much as I can in the past two weeks to stop (see the forwarded email to BB’s parents I sent two days ago) need some help stop this inappropriate behavior. When can you come in for a parent/teacher/student conference? I’m free most days after school. Thanks so much for your help. _

_ Rey Sanderson _

_ 11th Grade English _

_ Jakku Senior High School _  


Rey didn’t get a response from the mysterious [ bsolo@firstorder.net ](mailto:bsolo@firstorder.net) until the following morning when she woke up. It had apparently been sent at 1 am.

_ Ms. Sanderson,_

_ Thank you for alerting me of this situation. I’ve already texted Poe and Finn, they want me to meet with you today after school. This is unacceptable behavior and it must stop. _

_ Ben Solo _

_ Chief Financial Officer _

_ First Order Enterprises _

Rey immediately agreed and thanked Ben Solo for his prompt reply, even though she was secretly judging him for being up that late. 

And after a full day of teaching juniors about Twain, she sat twiddling her thumbs until BB and Ben Solo arrived for their meeting. When Rey had told BB to meet with her after school, the little shit’s face lit up. 

“Oh no, it's a _bad meeting_, you do _not_ want it,” Rey had said fiercely to BB in front of all of 4th period. “You better be there.” BB had almost looked scared, but then shrugged it off. 

At 3:02 BB rolled in, striding into the classroom like they owned the place and with a smile on their face.

“‘Sup, Miss?”

Rey pursed her lips together and breathed in deeply, trying desperately to not roll her eyes. “Hi, BB. How are you?”

“Better now that I’m with you, Miss.” BB gave a shit-eating grin. This time, Rey did roll her eyes at them. 

“BB, you have to stop.”

BB strolled around the classroom, taking the long way around to her desk. “Stop what?” BB asked as they ran their hands through their hair. 

Instead of engaging in this ridiculous conversation, Rey changed the subject. “BB, why are your dads out of town without you?”

BB shrugged. “Eh, some dig of some kind. They’re archeologists. They leave a couple of times a semester for a couple of weeks at a time.”

This hurt Rey. It hit her a little too close to home. But she wasn’t about to tell this cheeky student about her sordid, homeless, orphan past. Like BB needed another invisible connection to pull on. “Who takes care of you?” Rey asked.

“My uncle Ben. I mean, he’s never around much anymore, but he checks my grades and makes sure there’s food in the house and we go out to dinner on Saturdays.” BB plopped down on top of a desk. “But I can mostly take care of myself.”

“Off the desk, you know the drill,” Rey spat out. 

BB shuffled into a seat. _ It's good to know,_ Rey thought, _ that this kid still respects me, at least._

“So...who’s coming to this ‘bad’ meeting, Miss?” BB said, putting their weird triple air quotes around ‘bad’. “Lemme guess...is is Ms. Tico?” 

Rey suppressed a laugh. “Nope.”

A knock sounded on the door. BB whipped their head around and their sassy smile dropped a little. The kid looked a little scared.

Rey turned to the door. At first, she was _also_ a little scared.

Standing in the doorway was a hulking mass of a man dressed in all black with the meanest look on his face that Rey had ever seen on a parent. 

“Hi, Uncle Ben,” BB said after a quick swallow. _ Right. Guardian. _

Rey jumped up from her desk. “Mr. Solo?” she asked, walking toward him. 

_ The man is a mountain,_ Rey concluded. _ The closer I get to him, the bigger he appears._

Mr. Solo extended his arm for a handshake that is anything but warm. “Please, call me ‘Ben’.” Rey took his hand. It was practically a catcher’s mitt and surprisingly hot...but also a little clammy. Which she would choose not to think about. 

“Please, have a seat,” Rey offered. Ben sat in the student desk next to BB, looking ridiculous as he did. Sometimes the students didn’t fit into these desks, their lanky limbs spilling from underneath and causing Rey to literally trip over feet. Ben Solo fit into these desks about as well as a bull fits into a dollhouse. 

Rey did her best not to giggle. A smile escaped her lips anyway. 

Ben Solo’s sullen face turned to BB, his eyes boring into the kid. Everyone was silent for a moment before BB began to squirm. 

“What the hell, dude?” Ben calmly demanded, his dark voice enveloping the space between. 

BB shook. “I-I-I dunno,” they stammered, looking down at the desktop. Rey’s eyebrows shot up. She was unaware that BB could feel shame, but apparently they could. 

Ben leaned over and quietly, menacingly said, “I _know _your parents raised you better. I _ taught _ you better.” 

BB sank lower and lower into their desk. Rey’s eyes widened at the scene. Ben, the guardian, was an absolutely menacing presence. She had an instinct to step in, to tell Ben to back down, to stop scaring BB - but a deeper part of Rey, the part left over from the Stone Age, liked it. She liked that this man was dressing down this smart-ass kid who deserved it. He was parenting the kid. 

Rey didn’t even want kids, but she found her brain flashing onto an image of Ben parenting _their_ children. Little kids, pale like him and freckled like her. Stupidly tall like him, lithe like her. 

She blinked that image away as quickly as it came.

“When someone says ‘no,’ that means no.” 

Stars, Ben was parenting the kid about consent. Rey’s heart fluttered. 

“Just because she’s cute, doesn’t mean you keep going. She said ‘no.’ Stop it.”

Rey almost didn’t catch it. She didn’t realize what Ben had said until BB had released a small snort from their nose. Rey flit her attention back to Ben, who was almost red in the face - from what emotion, Rey couldn’t tell. But Rey felt her heart skip a beat because Ben had called her ‘cute’. 

“You’re not going to any after school shit because of this.” Ben then quickly turned his massive face with his weirdly plush lip and said to Rey, “Excuse me, pardon my language”. He turned back to BB and finished his thought somewhat nonchalantly, “You’re coming to the office.”

BB gave a loud, exasperated noise of disapproval and began waving his hands about. “The office?! But what about cross-count-?" 

“Nope. Until you get control of your hormones, you’re out.”

BB was practically vibrating with anger now, but the kid was so meek around Ben that he began to stutter. “D-d-d-dad and P-p-pop won’t-” 

Ben barked a laugh. A singular, mean laugh. He bared his teeth and slowly, menacingly said, “Who do you think came up with this consequence?” 

Rey was kind of terrified of Ben Solo. But she was also kind of turned on by him. He sat in a teenager’s school desk with the dignity and grace of a senator. He exuded the power of an emperor. And he was obnoxiously handsome. He was handsome like the way a modern piece of art was beautiful; weird and unconventional and like the parts somehow don’t go together on the first look, but the more you stare the more you appreciate it and the deeper the appreciation goes into your soul. 

_Stop having impure thoughts about the guardian of a child, you absolute mad woman. _

“But BB has to go to the dances,” Rey interjected. Ben snapped his head to her, eyes wide with contempt. 

“What?” Ben spat out.

It took some nerve to finish the rest of her thoughts. “BB is in ASB, they're on the social committee.” 

Both BB and Ben looked taken aback at first.

Then BB softened. “Aww, Miss, you _ do _ care -”

“Don’t you fucking try it, Bixby.” The words flew out of Ben’s mouth at such a volume, speed, and clarity that Rey wondered if he’d had theatre training. The reaction was immediate, though, as BB retreated into themself like an armadillo. _ It's amazing,_ Rey thought, _ how effective this man is with just his voice._ His deep, dark, caramelly voice that Rey was not mentally saving for later tonight. “And you will address her as Ms. Sanderson. She has a name.”

Ben then turned again to Rey. “Again, sorry for the language. I’m not used to censoring myself.”

“It...it’s fine,” Rey breathed out. 

“What do you mean they're on the social committee?” Ben asked, leaning forward. His voice was much gentler now as he spoke directly to Rey. 

Rey scrambled to form a coherent thought as Ben’s slicked-back black hair flopped forward into his eyes. “It’s part of their grade for the class. They have to go.”

Ben pursed his magnificent pink lips together and side-eyed BB. “When’s the next one?” Ben asked. 

“This Friday,” Rey answered. 

Ben huffed. “Fine. I’ll clear my schedule. I’m chaperoning.”

And if Rey found herself not five minutes after this electric meeting with BB and his Uncle Ben walking down to Tico’s office to inform the dean that she would, in fact, be able to chaperone on Friday, that was neither here nor there. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chaperoning the Back to School Dance goes from bad to worse for Ben Solo, grumpy guardian extraordinaire.

Ben wasn’t nervous about the Back to School Dance. He wasn’t feeling butterflies in his stomach as he raced from work to BB’s school. His attention was 100% on the road.

But then, Ben had always been good at lying to himself. 

He had lied to himself that he wouldn’t get attached to the kid when he begrudgingly accepted being their godfather 6 years ago. BB had been a small, lanky thing when Ben met them. BB had stepped on Ben’s feet multiple times. Ben had crossed his arms and frowned and tried his best to give a bad impression and BB had just hung onto him anyway. 

He had lied to himself when he said to Poe and Finn that he would just be cool Uncle Ben who would never stick around for more than a day because he hated kids. And then BB spent weeks at a time with Ben while their dads were out of town.

He had lied to himself when BB fell asleep on top of him while they were watching Lord of the Rings for the 6th time in as many months. Ben did not love this kid. Nope. 

He had lied to himself when he took the job at First Order two years ago, that it wouldn’t cut into his time with BB. 

He had lied to himself that BB was old enough to take care of themself. That BB didn’t need anyone. That BB was mature enough to handle their junior year on their own. 

And he had for sure lied to himself when he saw BB’s English teacher and said in his head _ Oh, she’s average looking. _Because if Ben just described her like he would at his job, she would be. White, 5’8’’, brown hair, brownish eyes, mid 20’s. But for someone who on paper seemed so average, Ms. Sanderson was such an arresting beauty. No wonder BB liked her so much. 

Because Ms. Sanderson was preternaturally beautiful with her chestnut hair swept up into a ponytail and her rosy cheeks dusted with freckles and her fierce hazel eyes and her banging athletic build and her smile that pierced through his veil of darkness. But Ben couldn’t tell her that. So he just…. pushed down the immediate attraction he felt for this woman because his kid was being a dick to her. 

Well. BB wasn’t really being a dick, just being dickish. And BB wasn’t his kid. (Again….lying to himself.)

Yet. Here Ben was, chaperoning a dance that BB had to be at because of their stupid ASB class and standing awkwardly in the dark, scanning the room for randy teenagers to break up and waiting for the chance to humiliate BB if they tried anything funny. Which they would. Ben just had to-

“-You okay there, Mr. Solo?” 

Ben was snapped from his interior monologue by the distinguished English lilt emitting from Ms. Sanderson’s pretty mouth. Her expression was friendly and playful and her teeth shone purple under the black lights. Her hair was down now, just hitting her shoulders as she bounced to the music. 

Ben desperately wanted to run his fingers through her cropped brown hair. To pull her small body into him. To kiss her plush lips senselessly. To make her moan into his mouth. To make her fall apart at his touch. 

“Yep,” he grunted. 

She smirked at him and layed back against the same wall he was leaning against. “So…” she crossed her arms. “Are you having fun, yet?” 

Ben turned his head toward her, looking down at her. He was definitely not glancing down her glowing white shirt, which was way too low cut for a teacher who taught pubescent young adults, right? He turned back to the teenage bacchanal with disgust.

“Loads,” he said with as much attitude as he could muster. That elicited a guffaw from Ms. Sanderson. A loud one. It made Ben smirk at her. 

She knocked into him lightly with her shoulders. She was warm. Much warmer than Ben had anticipated.

“Is this your first time at one of these?” Ms. Sanderson asked as she crossed her arms, which Ben noticed were absolutely cut. Who was this woman? What did she do in her spare time? Wrestle bears? 

He gulped. “Uh-huh.” God, why couldn’t he just….talk to her? Why couldn’t he talk to anyone like a normal human? He nervously shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his slacks.

After a moment of awkward silence, Ms. Sanderson let out a sigh. “Well...I just wanted to say thanks for what you did with BB earlier this week. So…” She got up off the wall and turned away. “Thanks!” she shouted, practically skipping away from him.

He smiled softly as she left to go to the dancefloor to dance with some of her students. He watched her attempt to line dance to Footloose. He watched her laugh with students as they did the Cabbage Patch (horribly, he might add). He watched her sway to that stupid song from that stupid app that BB was always talking about...TapTap? Was that it?

Oh. He was supposed to be here watching BB, not creepily watching their teacher. Where the fuck had that fucker gone?

He went on a hunt for the kid around the gym, stopping by the snack bar for his complimentary slice of pizza and soda. He walked through the crowds of kids, behind the DJ booth, and along the walls with food in hand, searching for BB in the dark. He scanned the room for a shock of orange hair wearing all white clothes - ah, there they were, being followed by an entourage of kids. 

Ben recognized a bunch of the teens from BB’s social media, including that idiot Nines (birth name Virgil Black. Ben would have gone by his basketball number, too, if he had been cursed with such a name). Ben was constantly telling BB to stop hanging around Nines, the kid was a bad influence. Ben had a feeling this whole "Ms. Sanderson thing" was BB trying to impress Nines for some reason. 

Oh, god, no. 

The crew of kids was rolling up to Ms. Sanderson with open arms, led by BB the whole way.

Before Ben could even think, he was running and yelling a litany of swear words at his stupid kid. And then everything went quiet. The DJ even did a dumb record scratch like this was some Varsity Blues bullshit. Everyone in the room, all of the kids and parents and teachers, were glaring at him with wide, frightened eyes.

Including the otherworldly Ms. Sanderson, who didn’t deserve any of the things that were happening to her. 

Ben knew exactly why everyone was looking at him in this way. He was a large man with a booming voice and he was quick to anger and he had just been _screaming _ at BB to “STOP FUCKING AROUND, YOU LITTLE SHIT.” Ben looked like an abusive piece of shit dad. Even though BB was not his child. 

So Ben put his hands up in surrender. “Sorry. I’m...so sorry. I’ll step outside.” Ben began to turn to the gym doors, but not before giving BB a death glare that read _ You’re dead meat when we get home. Dead. Fucking. Meat. Back off. _

BB looked terrified and backed off of Ms. Sanderson. Ben’s eyes met hers and he felt his face fall. She looked so confused, so afraid of him, so taken aback. Ben needed to get a grip. She was so normal and kind. And he was a mess. 

He was a mess with a terrible job he hated and a kid he couldn’t parent and no ability to form coherent sentences that weren't aggressive or hateful or both. And she was the object of everyone’s desires. She had to have a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. Or a partner. Or multiple. There was no way Ms. Sanderson would ever look at him...he was a guardian of a kid she taught. 

Ben was so lost in his thoughts staring at the passing cars outside the gym that he jumped when he heard her voice asking “Are you alright?”

His heart pounded in his chest. “Fuck, you scared me.”

She smiled wickedly at him. “I know. Secret teacher ninja skills.” Ben’s heart continued to pound, but for an entirely different reason. “Seriously,” she asked, softer now, “Are you okay? You seem tense.”

Ben raised his eyebrows at her. “You’re not here to ask me to leave?”

Ms. Sanderson leaned on her elbows against the railing Ben was standing in front of and clasped her hands together. “No. Not yet at least.” She glanced up at him with a smirk on her lips. “BB said you’re going to kill them when you get home. I’m here to intervene...even though they totally deserve it.”

Ben was wound tighter than a string, that’s for damn sure, but at least he wasn’t being forced to leave a school function. He hadn’t realized how anxious he was until his breath released from his lungs and words spewed out his mouth. 

“That damn kid’s going to be the death of me.” He clenched his fists against the cool railing. “I love them, but I swear they’re going to give me an aneurysm.”

Ms. Sanderson giggled lightly. Ben was at first surprised but found himself joining her in the giggles. She was contagious. 

“I know what you mean,” she said with a sigh. “BB’s a great kid, but bloody misguided.” She put up her hair and exposed her neck. Ben felt dirty about how much he liked the view. “They’ve been okay this whole week. You’ve done a number on them, I think,” she said with a wink.

Ben shook his head. “I just wish I was better,” he said, the thought escaping his mouth under his breath. He ground his teeth and shut his eyes, riddled with embarrassment. At his actions. His words. His entire being. 

He then felt a hand on his shoulder. Her hand. He looked down at it with surprise. 

“Well,” she said softly, “for what it’s worth, I think you’re doing okay.” He looked at her face. Her nose was dusted with freckles and her skin glowed in the sunset and her hair bounced in the breeze. Ben had to look away.

“I mean, you’re not BB’s _ real _ parent, right?” she said, removing her hand from his shoulder. Ben longed for her to touch him again. “But you’ve stepped up to taking care of a kid with busy parents. That takes a special kind of person, even though you are absolutely mental.” She adjusted her shirt. “No one has business being that loud, my god.”

Ben huffed. “Yeah. I know. I gotta calm down.” He glanced down at her through his eyelashes. “I promised myself I wouldn’t turn into my parents. Turns out I’m turning into my boss, which is way worse.”

He looked over at her. She was giving him a knowing smile. Not a beaming, cheesy smile. A soft one. Like she understood him. Like she saw him. 

“You’re good, Sanderson,” Ben said quietly, not looking at her. 

From the corner of his eye, he saw her tilt her head. “I’m sorry?” she asked, confused.

Ben sighed deeply. “You...you’re good at calming people down and getting them to talk about themselves. Is that a teacher-thing? Like the ninja skills?”

She awkwardly laughed as she shook her head and shrugged. God, she was so cute. He couldn’t stop looking at her and being drawn in by her sunshine energy. Ben didn’t even believe that crap and yet, he definitely felt warmth radiate from her smile and saw light shine in a halo around her head. 

_ Stop it. She’s BB’s teacher. STOP IT. _

But he couldn’t help it. 

“I’m...I’m not sure,” Ms. Sanderson said with an awkward shrug. “I guess so? Maybe?” The two of them stood in silence except for the bass escaping the gym walls. They were alone. The longer she stayed out there with him, the more aware Ben became of her.

She smelled...so good. Like sugared roses and gardenia flowers. But he wasn’t about to tell her that. Ben was already aggressive and loud and large, he couldn’t add “creep” to that list.

“You smell amazing.” His eyes went wide. She coaxed more of his thoughts out of his head. 

Except the words came out with an English accent. And in a much higher pitch than his own voice.

He turned slightly toward Ms. Sanderson. Then away. Then all the way to her. 

She looked about as surprised as he felt. 

“I-I’m sorry, that was really very awkward of me,” she apologized, pushing off the railing she was leaning against and stepping backward to the gym. “And completely inappropriate. My apologies.”

Ben’s heart sank into his stomach only enough to spur his arm into action. He gently grabbed out to her waving arms, stopping her from turning completely away from him. She looked up at him with her hazel doe eyes, looking innocent as a deer but as tired as a battle-worn general. This woman had seen things. What, Ben had no idea, but he recognized that tired look on her face. He saw it every day in the mirror.

“It was,” Ben said, “but I don’t mind.”

He watched air escape her lips. 

“I was thinking the same thing about you, honestly.”

He heard breath suck into her lungs. 

And then he let go of her. Because he was being creepy and aggressive. 

“Sorry. See you around, Ms. Sanderson.”

He turned away from her and waited for the door to the gym to open and close. But it didn’t.

So he turned around to face her. Ms. Sanderson was standing straight as a needle and looking weirdly relaxed. She was much taller than Ben had initially realized, especially in those boots. 

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you actually parent BB?” she asked, point-blank. No judgment. No morbid curiosity. Purely seeking information.

Ben shrugged. “I dunno...probably a 4? I think?” Ben leaned back against the railing, casually as he could muster around her. “I’m ‘Uncle’ Ben for a reason.” When she didn’t say anything, he attempted to explain. 

“Finn and Poe are amazing parents, they did the work in creating that monster; I just tag along when I can.” Ben was going for humor. Judging by the lack of laughter from both of them, the joke clearly didn’t land. 

Ms. Sanderson processed this information. For a long ten seconds.

“Why?” Ben asked, suddenly getting warm and sweaty with nerves. “Sanderson?”

Ms. Sanderson nodded her head once, not looking at him. “You can call me ‘Rey.’”

Ben smirked. “Only if you call me ‘Ben.’”

But Rey was still not looking at him. And then she put her hands together and her elegant fingers to her lips. And then she spoke.

“Right. Ben, could you help me with something in my classroom really quickly?" 

Ben raised his eyebrow at her. “Something...in your classroom?” He asked, unsure of the appropriateness level of this request. He was just a guardian of a student and they were both allegedly chaperoning a dance. He shouldn’t -

“It’s just I need an extra pair of hands. You can say ‘no,’” she quickly supplied. “We’ll pop back in a jif.” 

Ben was already moving from his spot on the railing. “No, no, it’s fine. I can help you. Whatever you need, Rey.”

The trouble was that Ben had no idea what he was getting himself into and there was an unsettling yet calming feeling vibrating through him; Ben found himself immediately willing to do anything for Rey Sanderson simply because she asked.

Anything. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all! I finally have some time coming up here to finish this fic before the new year. Thanks for sticking around and reading if you're still here, I love you!
> 
> This has been read aloud once and is un-beta'd so let me live :D

She thought she was going to perhaps wow Ben with her cute loose white t-shirt and her cute blue jeans, but Rey clearly was playing in the big leagues with this fashionista. The moment BB’s Uncle Ben showed up to the Back to School dance wearing a sleek, tailored black suit, Rey knew she was done for. 

Ben Solo was an enigma wrapped in Prada and it was unfair just how good he looked scowling in the corner of the gym. Rey had worked up the nerve to approach him a couple of times, and each time he basically had grunted at her. However, each time his posture also softened and his lips turned upwards a little, almost like an attempt at a smile.

He looked like he hadn’t smiled in years. The lines on his forehead were pretty permanent, his crows feet were prematurely visible, and he had a figurative rain cloud above him at all times. 

Yet, Rey found herself drawn to his morbid, morose aura. She always had a soft spot for Byronic heroes. 

Everything about Ben was serious. His clothes, his attitude, his hair. He even chaperoned dances seriously. 

Rey had, at first, been scared of just how loud Ben Solo had shouted and how enraged he looked when he had yelled at BB in the gym during the dance. And then he had hung his head and turned tail like a dog, leaving the room with an apology. Rey had peered at her surroundings and found herself looking at BB and their stupid friends looking terrified as all hell. 

“Sorry, Ms. Sanderson,” BB had said hastily as Rey had said, “Are you okay?”

BB nodded and shook their head, trying to decide what to say. “Um, yeah, its just, omigodhe’sgonnakillme.”

Rey heard a snicker to her right and found her least favorite student there. “Nines,” she shouted, “Go away.” Nines and his cronies ran to the other side of the room. Rey turned her attention back to BB. “Bix, what do you mean ‘he’s going to kill you’?”

BB shrugged maniacally. “Ms. Sanderson, I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again. Please, please, please, just talk to him?” 

Rey raised her eyebrow and crossed her arms at them. “About what?” God, she loved watching kids sweat when they knew they were in deep shit. It was one of the better parts about teaching.

“I get it! No means no! I need to not listen to Nines! I need to hang out with other people, please just talk to him I don’t want to die! I’m too young!”

It took so, so much effort for Rey to not smile but she did it. “Is your Uncle Ben going to hurt you?” she asked, but she had a feeling she didn’t need to.

BB blinked. And then breathed. “Um ...probably not?”

“What’s the worst that will happen?”

BB blinked again. “....he’ll take away my phone probably. Definitely grounded until Dad and Pops get back. Probably until the SAT.”

Rey tapped BB on their shoulder. “BB...stop being a jerk. You’re a good kid and you’re pretty smart...stop acting like you’re a dummy who doesn’t understand ‘no.’” 

BB sighed and their breath shuddered on the way out as they hung their head in defeat. 

“Fine, I’ll talk to him.” Rey turned toward the door of the gym. “No promises!” she had shouted back at the kid. She walked out the door of the gym and into the world.

If Ben Solo looked good inside the gym under blacklights and light specials, he practically glowed bathed in golden sunset. 

Rey honestly had to stop herself from passing out at the sight of him. 

She didn’t remember much of the conversation she had with him because every time he complimented her, her heart skipped.

And then her mouth betrayed her and she blurted that he smelled good. Because he did smell good. He smelled like cloves and evergreens.

And she had tried to run away, but he touched her. Not in an aggressive, creepy way, though. He was grasping onto her arm like the frightened animal she was and he was a hunter. But he was a hunter who let go of his prey.

His eyes scanned her face looking for something and that look had awakened something in her that she had long since thought was dormant.

But also, he was very large. And that sparked an idea in her.

“Can you help me with something?”

She expected him to say no. But he had said “I can help you. Whatever you need, Rey.”

Her face had gone warm as he nearly smiled at her. 

She awkwardly laughed and turned around and shouted for him to follow her, practically skipping away into the main office across the courtyard. She heard his lumbering steps behind her. Her stomach flip flopped as she realized that he was chasing her. She never got chased, physically or metaphorically, but she had never accidentally hit on a student’s parent or guardian before so this night was a firsts for her. 

She opened door to the office and felt his grasp on the door right behind her. “What are we doing?” he asked plainly, nearly no-nonsense. “I thought we were going to your classroom?”

Rey wished she could stop herself from giggling, so she tried to play it off like excitement. “Um, yeah, we are,” she said, her voice echoing in the empty office, “but we need a ladder first.”

Ben said nothing for a moment before asking, “Why?” Rey turned back to him for a moment and saw him slide his massive hands into his trousers and casually lean against a wall. The picture of him was sinful. Thank the stars above that he was glancing around the room instead of at her because Rey felt herself shudder at the sight of him and his broad chest. 

She turned back around and sighed. “Uhm, well,” she began as she opened the door to a supply closet. “So we have this thing we do as a staff, its basically like Secret Santa but we give each other gifts?”

He said nothing. Oh god, he’s lost interest, she thought. She barrelled forward. “But my person, Mr. Teedo, it’s his birthday on Monday so I wanted to surprise him.” She picked up the ladder and hoisted it out of the darkness of the supply closet. 

“And you need a ladder for…?” he asked softly. 

“Putting up a banner!” she playfully shouted. “But I figured if I have a sasquatch like yourself around, it will be done in two seconds instead of two hours.” She flashed him a smile. 

He gave her a smirk. Yes. He was cracking.

“Do you need me to carry that?” he asked, walking forward.

“No, no, I’ve got it,” Rey deflected. “It’s my chance to show off my guns.” She playfully winked at him. She expected him to respond, but he just stood in front of her awkwardly. Rey was beginning to get frustrated. It was like a game of snakes and ladders talking to Ben Solo - two steps forward then one step back. “Can you open the door for me, please?” she asked in her best impatient yet kind teacher voice.

Ben blinked himself from his stupor, shaking his head and making a noise that was somewhere between a cough and grunt as he moved to open the door. Rey couldn’t help but laugh.

“What?” he asked, clearly self-concious about his actions. He rubbed his neck. This only made Rey laugh a bit more.

“You know,” Rey said as she strutted through the doorway, “for not being your kid, you and BB are very alike.”

“What the hell does that mean?” 

Rey shook her head and walked past him into the darkened hallway. “You stare at people and blink yourself out of it like you’ve been daydreaming or something.”

“Everyone does that. Please give me the ladder.”

Rey walked faster and readjusted the heavy thing on her shoulders. “No its’-its fine - seriously, you look exactly like them.” She tried to glance back at him casually. She knew it didn’t succeed when Ben grabbed the back of the ladder free from her body. 

“Move up?” he suggested calmly, softly. She blushed at the softness of this moment; she hadn’t known him long, but Rey hadn’t fathomed that Ben Solo had the ability to be soft. His “fuck you and your kin” attitude of authority, his loud and assertive (attitude), his streamlined, spartan sentences; all pointed to the exact opposite of mousy and shy and twilit.

She let him help her carry the ladder. It was nice not to struggle lifting this load on her own anymore.

“Anyway, that’s bullshit,” Ben swore. For someone who usually abhorred swearing, there was something about how Ben pronounced the words that was good and right with Rey. “We don’t look alike, have you seen us?”

Oh, how have I. “That’s not what I meant - you act so similar. So familiar, really. I watch them rub their neck that way every day when they’re reading complex texts or taking tests. You even use the same arm.”

Ben chuckled. 

“Oh my god, you do laugh!” she exclaimed in jest, sliding into a laugh at the end of her thought. 

His silly laugh subsided a bit. “Wha...what?” 

Rey frowned a bit. She had clearly embarrassed him and she felt bad about that. Rey turned the corner and Ben followed, still attached to the ladder.

“I...it-s just...I don’t think I’ve seen you smile once.”

Rey only heard his breathing their falling footsteps on the linoleum floor for a good five seconds before Ben said, “I’ve been known to smile.”

Her eyebrows raised themselves up, unseen by Ben. “Only on special occasions, I’m sure,” she teased. “Nearly there.” She pointed to the door near the end of the long hallway. Only moments later the ladder lifted off her shoulders. 

And then moments after that, Rey was on a ladder and Ben was on a chair, nearly silent and weirdly professional as they hung up the massive “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” vinyl poster. Rey tried her best to not look at his face, but his face was so interesting. Each part of his face was possibly more ridiculous than the next: his plush lips Rey was already familiar with; his brow and cheek bones protruded from his face and reached out to her, wanting to be touched; his eye color was dark, but Rey couldn’t tell of what color yet; his nose proudly stood at attention from his profile; but Rey was starting to think her favorite part of Ben Solo’s face were his freckles and moles.They were all over him, dotted on fair skin, the inverse of the night sky. She particularly liked the large one next to his nose and the couple that lived on his neck.

“How many years have you been teaching?” 

Rey snapped herself from her admiration and came zooming back to a reality where she had to act normal. Ben was not looking at her, thank god, and she quickly turned her head to the banner. 

His voice was odd - simultaneously dark and nasally, two things that should not go together and yet work. Much like the rest of Ben Solo.

“This is my fourth year.”

Ben nodded and adjusted his side of the banner. “Do you like it?”

“Teaching and I have a very intimate, familial relationship,” Rey supplied, fishing for a follow up question. 

Her vague answer was rewarded with an inquisitive, serious look from Ben. “What?” he asked. 

Rey shrugged and adjusted her side of the banner. “It’s like family. You love it, but you don’t always like it.” And this was true. Rey loved her job. She loved teaching kids, loved showing them the worlds she escaped to as a child. But she didn’t always like the other parts of her job; grading, paperwork, meetings….

She also didn’t really like talking to parents. 

Except this one.

“What about you?” she asked in a huff as she leaned on the top of the ladder. “Do you like your job?”

Ben was silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts. He then abruptly turned to her and in all seriousness said “I hate it.”

Rey was taken aback for a moment. “Really?” She leaned toward him. “What do you do?”

“I’m a Chief Finan-”

“Chief Financial Officer,” Rey interrupted. “Right, but what do you do?”

Ben hopped off the desk surprisingly gracefully, especially for a man so large, and landed with a soft thud on the linoleum floor of the classroom. “I move money around the world to avoid corporate taxes in about 15 countries and make lists of people to fire.” His jaw clenched and his body became rigid.

Rey blinked. No wonder he wore fabulous Prada suits and didn’t smile. “Thats….that sounds interesting.”

Ben leisurely but assuredly walked over to the ladder, looking directly at her face the whole time. “If it was interesting, I would probably like it.” His words cut through the air with precision, something that Rey was totally unfamiliar with, her being a high school teacher. 

“Oh,” was all she could muster. She usually had more time to think. She usually wasn’t distracted by an attractive, magnetic man looking up at her face. She usually wasn’t starry-eyed and lusty just by smelling someone. 

She jolted upright and waved around her arms like mad. “Seriously, what cologne do you wearRA!” Rey immediately lost her balance like an imbecile and began falling to her death.

A loud, deep “Woah!” emitted from Ben’s mouth and Rey landed in Ben’s arms, her face turned redder than a tomato.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” She shimmed out of his arms and began adjusting her clothes and hair. 

“No, no, it’s fine,” Ben said, trying to console her. “Are you okay?”

Rey shrugged nonchalantly. “Oh, peachy. Just falling off of ladders like a madwoman and being caught by handsome men, I’m fine.”

The words ran out of her mouth before she could actually think about what she was saying. Rey really had Friday-Night-Brain and it was becoming an embarrassing issue for her. She stopped talking and turned away from Ben, silently cursing herself for not thinking before speaking for the second time in a minute and hoping he wouldn’t notice that she had called him ‘handsome.’

He was silent. She took a minute to compose herself. She took a deep breath and turned around. He was loosening his tie half-absent mindedly with his lips parted slightly.

“Armani Code,” he said, nodding to look at her through his brows.

She shook her head and twitched. “What?”

“It’s what I’m wearing. Since you asked.” He inched closer to her and whispered, “Why did you ask?” 

Rey’s body felt electric. “I...I really like it.” He was tracking her with his dark brown eyes like a panther tracks its prey, yet she did not feel afraid.

Everything this man did should be deathly frightening to her, should be sending up red flags - and yet, here she was with her heart beating out of her chest and making a fool of herself but resolutely standing her ground.

“Are you going to buy it for someone?” he asked, his voice curious and light.

Rey snorted. “On my teacher’s salary? You’re joking, mate.”

Ben stopped moving his body for a moment and looked her up and down. He was barely a foot away. “What are you wearing?” he asked. “Perfume-wise?”

Rey shrugged. “I get the free samples from the subscriptions in the library. I have no idea what this is, but I practically drenched myself in it before the dance.” Ben looked adorably mortified with his brow scrunched together. “Balling on a budget!” she tried to joke. Ben was clearly not amused. There was a different, darker, unknowable emotion hiding in his intense eyes.

He got even closer to her and breathed her in. “I have to know what this is,” he said under his breath, so soft Rey almost couldn’t understand him. 

“Why?” she prodded, attempting to bait him. “Are you going to buy it for someone?” 

Ben’s eyes bored into hers. She glanced at his lips. “Maybe,” he teased. 

Rey wasn’t sure who kissed who first, but she did know that her insides lit up like a Christmas tree when he gasped into her mouth. Her hands grabbed his face like they had minds of their own, pulling him closer into her. His body responded in kind as he enveloped her almost completely with his massive body, gliding his hands along her waist and to the small of her back. 

She ran her tongue ran along his lower lip, prodding his mouth open. He tasted almost fresh, like he had been chomping on mints at some point in the last couple hours. One of his hands left her side and slid up her arm, carefully, gingerly, intentionally lining her bones from finger to shoulder. It was Rey’s turn to gasp mid-kiss when Ben placed his hands on her neck and stroked his thumb along her jaw. The pressure of his hot palm on her cool neck was juxtaposed by the overwhelmingly sweet and tender tension of his fingertips. 

But then Rey remembered that kissing Ben Solo was probably a big gray line that led to teacher jail with unpaid leave.

She broke off the kiss abruptly and the “Ohmygod,” fell out of her mouth like water. 

Ben raised his eyebrows and asked, “Are you alright?”

Her eyes flit back and forth between her ears in a panic. She pushed his hands out of the way and removed herself from their close embrace, completely out of reach of him. 

“This is nineteen levels of inappropriate.” She was pacing to the wall in the aisle between rows of desks. “Holy shit, I’m going to have to tell my union rep about this, holy shit, DAMN IT.”

“What are you talking about?” He had followed her and grabbed her arm.

Rey turned around angrily and smacked his arm, causing him to recoil and shake his hand a bit. Rey nearly scoffed. “Stop! You are a PARENT of a STUDENT, I can’t be - we can’t be-” 

“Kissing?” Ben finished, confused. 

“Right! We can’t be-,” she gestured wildly between them and then whispered, “kissing!” She backed up away from him. “I teach your kid!”

Ben’s eyebrows furrowed deeply as he processed what she said. “I’m…” and then it hit him. His eyes went wide, but not as wide as Rey thought they should. He stood up straight and cocked his head to the side. “I’m not BB’s dad…”

Rey rolled her eyes. “You’re they’re Uncle Ben, are you not?” Ben shook his head with incredulity. “You’re a guardian! That’s the same as a parent!”

“That can’t be a fireable offense, Rey.”

“Well, it could be!” Rey shouted. “This is the kind of shit that puts me on Dateline!” She began pacing. “I’m going to be the vixen who seduced the CFO!”

Ben smirked. “Come on, we all know who looks worse in this situation.” He opened his arms and breathed heavily.

Rey shook her head at his idiocy. “Ben. I am a teacher. We are always the villians in the news because all those idiots failed everything execept their fucking communications classes.” She walked around him and toward the door. “It’s always our fault, so my apologies, but I think I’ll be going.”

“Oh, come on, that’s bullshit, Rey.” Ben chased after her. “Teachers only make the news if they’re pedophiles.” Those damn legs of his got him in front of the door before she could walk out it. “And I am the opposite of a child.” Rey threw up her arms to argue, but he grabbed her hands before she could begin. He smiled cheekily and dropped his voice into a vague sing song. “I’m the venture capitalist taking advantage of my godkid’s unreasonably attractive teacher.” He stood up straighter. “The only way the news is going to know or care about this is if one of us tells them.”

Rey wanted to be mad at him, but Ben Solo was being so damn charming. And logical. 

“Besides,” he let go of her arm. “I’m not BB’s legal guardian. Just a glorified babysitter at best.” His brows furrowed as he looked away from her in contemplative but completely feigned sadness. “I don't even get paid.” His mischievous eyes darted back up at her and he flashed her a honest-to-God smile. 

Rey couldn’t help but shake her head a grant Ben with a couple of laughs. 

They then fell into an almost-awkward silence for a few moments before Ben said, “Let me make you dinner.”

She blinked twice as her brain computed this new data point. “I’m sorry, what?”

“If what they say about teachers is true, you are overworked and underpaid. Let me make you dinner.”

Her stance shifted into one of disbelief. “Are you seriously asking me out? Right now?”

“...yes?”

“....are you going to tell the news or the cops?”

Ben gave her a deadpan stare. “No, I’m not.”

Rey wanted to say no. Should have said no. 

“Fine. When? And where?”

“Finn and Poe are back from South America next Wednesday. Then. That night. My place.” He leaned over and whispered into her ear, “No teenagers.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've seen TROS, consider this a humble offering of a remedy to that.....
> 
> If you've not seen TROS...have fun :D 
> 
> This is nearly 4k words of build up to a little smutty situation - nothing graphic, but you have been warned.

The text said “_I’m running a little late sorry :(_.”

Dinner was supposed to start at 6:30.

It was now 7 o clock, and Ben was twiddling his thumbs like an idiot. He was being ghosted; she was too good for him and she had finally realized it. Rey was going back to her home, wherever that was, and not coming to his condo for dinner. He had been prepping for it for days; making the sourdough rolls from scratch, slow cooking the stew, going to flipping Whole Foods to grab the fanciest fucking cheeses he could get for the cheeseboard. And it was all for nought. Rey wasn’t-

_Ping_!

Ben looked at his phone.

_I’m five minutes away! I’m SO SORRY :((((((( You have parking right? _

Ben hadn’t realized he’d been slouching, but his posture immediately changed as he typed back a response with the gate key and his condo number.

Within three minutes, there was a knock at his door. He bounded to the door and opened it.

She looked...frazzled, to say the least. Her hair was falling out of a pony tail in piecy strands, her undereye make up was smudged, her chunky gray cardigan was kattywompus and falling off her bare shoulder into the crook of her arm. She was holding a wine bottle in each hand and giving a pained, awkward smile. Most of her make up had faded away revealing the dusting of freckles on her nose and cheekbones. Her white tank top was wrinkled and showed off her collarbones.

She looked frazzled, yes. But she also looked beautiful.

“I didn’t know what kind you liked, so I bought both,” she said by way of explanation of the wine bottles. She looked at Ben expectantly but made no moves. “Can...can I come in?” she asked.

Ben shook his head at himself. “Ah, sorry, yes, of course, come in!” He gestured toward his hallway and allowed her to pass by, but not before grabbing the wine bottles. “Thank you for these, you didn’t have to.”

She giggled, a light and airy sound. “Don’t be absurd. Of course I did. You invited me over for dinner and I was late.” She adjusted her cardigan and covered herself up, clearly feeling uncomfortable.

“You can put your stuff down anywhere.” Ben gestured to the hallway and closed the door with his foot. The two of them made their way to the kitchen where Ben opened up the red. “So, what happened?”

Rey exhaled loudly and for a prolonged second. “I’m going to need a glass before I dig into this.”

Ben chuckled and poured her glass first. She took a sip and inhaled, closing her eyes as she did so. “I had to call CPS,” Rey said. Ben gave her a silent, quizzical look. “Child Protective Services,” Rey supplied.

“Oh,” was all Ben could manage.

“Yeah.” Rey took a larger swig of her wine this time. “Its been an afternoon, to say the least.” She looked deep into her glass and swirled it around absent-mindedly.

“How are you doing?” Ben asked her quietly. “Do...you want to talk about it?” Rey shrugged it off.

“It’s not exactly first date material.”

Ben stepped closer to her by a hair and lowered his head. “I don’t mind.”

She looked up at him with tears starting to bubble in her eyes. “I,” she started, but her voice cracked. She breathed in a shuddering breath. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

Ben didn’t know what to do or say, what would be the most appropriate choice. “Do you want to talk about it?” he repeated. “Because if you don’t-”

“No, I do,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “Do you want to hear it?” She wiped away at her tears messily, not caring about her mascara.

Ben gently grasped her hand as it returned to the kitchen counter. “I do.” He gave her a reassuring, closed-lip smile and squeezed her hand.

Rey then _exploded_. Words erupted from her for ten straight minutes as she talked and talked and talked. A girl had confided in Rey that an older cousin whom she lived with had been repeatedly raping her for years. The reason the girl had felt strong enough to speak up about it was because they were reading _Perks of Being a Wallflower_ and _13 Reasons Why_ in class. Rey had to keep her shit together from 3 pm to 6:30 pm while she talked with the student, with the counselor, with the CPS operative. Rey outlined the whole harrowing, emotionally draining ordeal with little details about the actual reported incidents, but with excruciating detail into how she felt the whole time.

And she _cried_. She ugly cried, snot running, coughing and sputtering her way through the story. Ben’s heart sank deeper into his gut the more she spoke, not once did he lift his hand from hers. Not once did he interject.

“And then...and then I left and went to Trader Joe’s for wine, and came here,” she said, sniffling and rubbing her free hand across her face to wipe away the offending fluids. “I’m sorry, this is the worst date ever, isn’t it?”

Ben shook his head. “Do you want a hug?” he asked. Rey did a double-take. “What?” she quietly responded. “You look and sound like you need one.”

Rey quickly responded with her body, sneaking her hands around his waist and grasping him tightly. Ben slowly put his arms around her, too, gently stroking her hair. She breathed in ragged breaths against his chest and cried some more.

“Goddamn it, you smell so good,” she exclaimed, laughing through her sobs.

Ben chuckled lightly. “Still Armani.”

“Of course it is,” she grumbled against his chest. She hugged him tighter and he returned the action in kind. They stood there for seconds or hours, breathing each other in and feeling the warmth of each other’s bodies. When she finally broke from their embrace, Ben hated it. He could touch Rey forever.

“Thanks for listening,” she sniffed, rubbing her eyes. “God, I’m a mess. Could I use your toilet?”

Ben nodded. “Yeah. Down the hall some more and to the left.” She excused herself and Ben began setting up for dinner. Rey was the first guest (besides BB and their dads) that Ben had invited over for dinner. Rey was also the first woman (besides his mother) to see the inside of his condo. He kept the place pretty clean, immaculate when his insomnia kicked in due to work-related stress. He didn’t have any pets or roommates to make a mess of things and he was at home infrequently so there was little to no mess to pick up. BB had their own room in the place and usually kept their room clean.

“Your place is quite nice,” came Rey’s voice from down the hall, firmer and with more resolve. She walked into the room, her shoes quietly padding on the tile floor. Gone were the streaks of black and brown from her eyes, though they did look a little puffy and red. She was clearly feeling better, Ben noted.

“Thanks,” Ben said as he offered Rey a chair.

Rey took it. “Seriously, I’m so embarrassed about the whole crying thing.”

Ben shook his head. “It’s really nothing. It’s an emotional, traumatic experience you went through.”

Rey winced. “Yeah, but I drooled all over your shirt.”

Ben looked down. There was indeed a wet spot on his left pec. He made a wincing face at it and then at Rey. She looked a little mortified. “Eh, its not the worst bodily fluid I’ve gotten on me,” he offered.

A laugh escaped Rey, a sharp and surprising “HA!”. She leaned forward on her elbows. “What’s the worst?”

“We’re about to eat dinner, your sure you want to know?”

Rey shrugged and rewarded Ben with a coy smirk.

“Easy. BB was eleven and got the flu. Threw up all over me right outside in the hallway, belt to shoes.” Ben gestured from his waist down. “The hallway smelled like vomit for weeks. The neighbors hated me.”

“I’m sure they didn’t.” “They did. I’m very hateable.”

Ben pulled the cheeseboard out of his fridge and chucked it onto the island where Rey and he would eat.

Rey’s brows furrowed. “You..you think you’re hateable?”

Ben grabbed the wine glasses from the counter and began refilling them. “Think? No. I know I am.”

Rey crossed her arms. “That’s super encouraging for me to stick around,” she droned, the statement dripping with sarcasm. “What makes you hateable?”

Ben winced. He should really stop the self-loathing show, but now he was on a roll.

“I’m loud, aggressive...um, I’m an asshole.”

Rey squinted her eyes at him, skeptical. “You’re describing me.” Her head cocked to the side. “Am I hateable?”

Rey was not hateable. Rey was clearly kind-hearted and strong-willed. She was clever and selfless. She was beautiful.

But it was too early to be sincere, right?

“I think you’re amazing.” Ben silently chided himself. Waaaay to sincere. Ben sometimes wished he could be more sarcastic, more flippant. But he wasn’t wired that way. “The opposite of hateable,” he continued. “Loveable.” The entire time he spoke directly to her. “You care a lot about other people, even though other people are awful.”

She scoffed. “How could you possibly know that about me?”

Ben shrugged. “You’re a teacher.” He took a swig from his wine glass.

“Plus, I’ve asked BB some questions about you.”

Her eyes went wide, like a deer in the headlights. “...what kind of weird things are you asking BB about?”

He laughed. “No, nothing weird. ‘Is she married,’ came up though.”

Rey laughed again in the same singular sharp way. “No, I’m not.” She took some cheese from the board. “Mmm...manchego?”

He clapped. “A woman who knows her cheese!”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Of course I do, I’m European.”

“I asked about that, too.” Ben grabbed a cornichon and a slice of salami. “How did you get stateside?”

“I came here for university.” She picked up a cracker and scooped it into the cranberry-covered chevre. “I applied and based on my background and scores at college, I got into the University of Chicago with a full scholarship.”

Ben was impressed. “So you’re a genius? Because the University of Chicago is expensive for Americans, let alone foreigners.”

Rey shrugged, popping peanuts into her mouth. “I’m a genius orphan with networking skills. I didn’t pay a cent for tuition.”

Ben was flabbergasted. “So...why are you teaching?”

Rey bit her lip. “Is teaching not what I should be doing?”

Oh shit. He’d fucked up. “No, that’s not what I’m saying.”

“So then what are you saying, then?” She was egging him on, waiting to debate him.

“It’s just...you could make so much more money doing something else.” “Oh?” Rey ate a piece of capicola. “Like you? And how happy are you, doing your job?” Ben remembered the conversation from last Friday and realized that he was in deep shit. “You make loads of money doing something you hate.” She took a drink from her glass. “Teaching sucks and it pays shit, but I … I like my job. Against all odds, I love it. I can’t stop doing it. And its a worthwhile profession. Sure, I won’t see the fruits of my labor for another 10 or 15 years, but I’m trying to help change this shitty world one kid at a time. Its better than contributing to the dumpster fire that is modern late-stage capitalism like a certain CFO I know.”

A year ago, Ben would have argued back. So cleanly she cut through him with her words, even if some of it had been in jest.

“See,” Ben said quietly. “Hateable.”

Rey glared at him. “I think the only person who hates you is yourself, Ben.”

Ben blinked at her. “How...dare you?” He wasn’t sure if he was being serious or humorous. Probably both.

Rey reached out to touch his hand. He didn’t move it. “I don’t hate you.” She smiled at him softly. “I’m sorry if what I said hurt you, but just know I don’t hate you. I think you’re...I don’t know, I think you’re pretty great as a person.” She then let go of his hand smacked it. “But so you know, this self-loathing, Heathcliff thing isn’t really working for me.” She gave him a wry and playful smile, the corners of her mouth upturned just enough to show that she was ribbing him.

Ben scoffed. “You? The English teacher?” He leaned in and whispered, “Lies.”

Their mouths were inches apart. He could feel her breath on his face. He wanted to kiss her.

“So what’s for dinner?” she asked, pulling away. “I’m starving and it smells amazing.”

She breathed in with her eyes closed and exhaled in near ecstasy, a sight that sent blood into Ben’s southern reaches. He had to focus a bit to keep his nether regions under control, but it was so hard when she looked like..._that_.

“Nothing crazy. Some stew and bread. Pie for dessert.” Ben grabbed some bowls from the cupboards and served Rey first. “Bon appetit.”

Rey didn’t even wait for the soup to cool before shoveling it into her mouth. “God, this is excellent,” she moaned, tasting it again. She full-on smacked the marble island. “Fuck! You made this?”

Ben smiled proudly. “I did.”

“Wow. Where did you learn to cook like this?”

Ben sat down with his own bowl. “I went to college, too, you know. Got my CPA and everything.” He put a spoonful of the stew in his mouth. Because of all the extra time waiting around for Rey, the flavors had developed more. He got up momentarily and grabbed the wooden box above the fridge. It was the only thing in his kitchen that wasn’t sleek and new. The box was about six inches long and hefty, filled end to end with recipe cards. “This is my grandmother’s recipe box. She died in childbirth, so I never knew her.”

Ben pulled out the Lamb Stew recipe from the front, the one he had been using today. “My mom gave this box to me when I got into U.Conn. I was basically helpless going into college; didn’t know how to cook, clean, do laundry, basically be a human being.”

Rey looked incredulous. “How the hell did you not know how to do those things at 18 years old? That’s insane.”

“I grew up rich. Everything was done for me.” Rey’s mouth opened wide. Ben moved forward before she could ask any embarrassing questions about his family fortune. “So I went to Connecticut and realized I had no skills and no friends. And because I was, and still am, not great with introductions, I learned how to cook in the kitchenette of my dorm room using these recipes. Bribe people to be my friend.” He started searching for the one with the notch in it. “The first time I made this one - ah, here -,” he pulled out the recipe for pistachio pesto pasta, “Poe kissed me.”

She processed this information. "Poe...as in one of BB's dads...."

Ben nodded.

“So what you’re saying is...that you’re going to make me that next time?”

Ben’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh? So there’s going to be a next time?”

“I’m keeping you around for the food and the food only, Mr. Secret Gordon Ramsay,” Rey said. She leaned in. “Seriously? You’ve kissed BB's dad? How did that happen?”

“Well, technically, a man kissed me.”

Rey giggled, inviting Ben to explain.

“It was college and, you know how it is, with everyone exploring their sexuality. Poe was my roommate and we got so drunk and I made him this pasta. He got one bite of this,” Ben flicked the card he held “and grabbed my face. We kissed for about a minute before I ended it because I realized that I am so painfully straight and he realized I am not his type.” Ben sat back in his chair and looked at Rey, who was beaming at him like he was the sun. “What?” Ben asked, confused as to why someone, anyone, would look at him like that.

She leaned on her hand dreamily. “You are full of surprises, Ben Solo.” Ben looked away from her, embarrassed and clueless in how to respond. “If you say so.” He looked up and smiled shyly at her. God, she was so pretty.

Rey then grabbed a piece of bread and ate it. She moaned again. “Omigod, where did you get this bread?” she asked with her mouth full. “I can’t find a decent bakery anywhere in the city.”

Ben ran his hands through his hair nervously. “I made it,” he said, shaky but proud. “It’s a sourdough French roll.”

Her eyebrows furrowed together in confusion, and then disbelief. “Are you telling me that you cook...and you _bake_?”

He felt heat rise in his cheeks and ears. “Yes. I guess.” He rubbed the back of his neck and grinned at her shyly.

“Is this your grandmother’s recipe, too?”

Ben could have said the complicated truth. That the sourdough starter was an amalgamation of a bunch of YouTube recipes and that the French roll recipe was his grandma’s and he had just adapted it to work.

Instead he said, “No, its mine.”

She finished chewing her bread and Ben watched her swallow that bite. Before he knew it, Rey was on top of him, her mouth on his.

This kiss was so different than their first. Last week, Ben had kissed Rey tenderly and timidly, unsure if she would reciprocate. Rey kissing him now was a whirlwind. She was smiling into it, licking his lips open. She raked her hands through his hair and grabbed him closer to her. Ben didn’t know what to do with his hands at first because of the shock, but as Rey straddled him he traced his fingers across her legs to her back. They both tasted like the meal they had just shared, but it wasn’t bad.

This was not exactly how Ben saw this evening going and he was so far the opposite of mad about it.

He deepened the kiss as she grinded her hips on him. His hips bucked and he pulled her into his chest. Her cardigan had shimmied itself off her shoulder again and Ben decided to help it along by taking it off of her completely. Rey’s hands found their way to his collared shirt buttons and began to unbutton just the top. Ben found himself giggling when her fingertips lightly grazed the back of his ear.

“Sensitive, are we?” she gasped with a wicked smile before she started to kiss his earlobe and down his neck.

Ben was never a lothario by any means at any point in his life. He’d been in a couple serious relationships that had ended anywhere from amicable to messy as hell. He’d had sex with maybe five women total. This was the first time that anyone had made him hard from just kissing his ears. But it wasn’t like a normal erection - it had started at the top of his head and rushed down his spine to his dick.

“Woah, what the fuck?” erupted from his mouth, unsure of what just happened.

Rey came back to his face and breathed heavily. “Not good?” she asked, unsure.

Ben shook his head, his eyes wide trying to take her in. Her hair was all on one side, her lips were swollen, and her eyes were half closed. She looked like sin and he was willing to go to hell for it. He would cook for her every night if she responded like this.

“So good,” he responded. She smiled at him and he had the overwhelming caveman urge to claim her as his. He licked a long, hot stripe against her neck from her collar bone to her ear and nibbled at her lobe. She whimpered and became like butter in his hands.

He breathed her in. It was a different scent than last time, but she still smelled incredible. He moved to the other side of her neck as she rubbed his chest. He brought his hands from her back to her breasts and massaged them. Her tits were perfect. She was perfect.

He felt her hands snake up to his neck again and take hold of his jaw. Rey moved his head from her neck to her mouth and felt her hot breath on his lips. He nudged her with his nose and smiled into yet another kiss. His tongue moved over hers to taste her again. Her hips rolled over his, to which he responded by grabbing her close to him and guiding her backwards.

Rey jolted forward toward him and released from the kiss. “The island,” she said.

_Well, this will not do at all_, Ben thought to himself. He wrapped his right arm around her and stood up with her, using his left arm to guide her legs around him. She screamed in delight for a moment as she became airborne and began to laugh.

“Ben!” Rey panted through her giggles. She grabbed on to his hair and tugged it back to get better access to his mouth, kissing him senseless as he carried her from the kitchen to the living room. His couches were large and comfortable enough to accommodate him falling asleep on them in nearly every position - perfect for fooling around with Rey.

He set her down gently on the couch while they were still attached at the mouth. She nibbled at his lower lip with those perfect teeth of hers and scratched absent-mindedly at his arms while he crawled on top of her. Their pace was not fast, nor was it overly languid. They were both intentionally exploring each other’s mouths and bodies with tongues and fingers. Ben breathed her in like she was oxygen, only coming up for the real thing when he absolutely needed to. Rey worked on unbuttoning the rest of his shirt in between little gasps that drove Ben wild.

She peeled his shirt off and crawled over him, forcing him backwards and relinquishing control. She ran her hands over his chest and -

“Fuckin’ hell, Solo, who knew you had this going on?” she rasped before placing sloppy wet kisses along his chest and setting him on fire.

“You like?” he found himself asking cheekily.

“Oh yes,” she purred. She sat up upbruptly and hastily shed her tank top, revealing a cute polka-dotted number beneath.

Rey was a vision above him. Her lips, swollen and deep red from kissing, were slightly parted. Her eyes were wide and wild. Her hair was going every which way. He skin had an otherworldly glow from the lights behind her. Her whole body was radiating heat.

She had the _audacity_ to make him feel this way? Why, and how, could she be so good? So kind? So firey? So inviting? So tangible?

Ben hadn’t felt anything but guilt and shame for a long time, but the way Rey looked at him made him feel euphoric. His heart was beating so hard in chest he seemed to hear it in his ears, his limbs converted to jello, his eyes scanned her desperately trying to commit this picture to permanent memory.

“God,” he moaned, palms rubbing the soft skin of her forearms.

“Yes?” she answered. She leaned on top of his chest, adding a pleasant pressure along his entire torso. “How can I help you?"

Ben blinked slowly and shook his head at her in joyous disbelief, rewarding her flirty comment with a small giggle. She was playing around with him. He liked it.

They had to have been making out for 10 minutes straight and he found himself not feeling bored and thoroughly engaged, eager to do this all night. He wanted to kiss Rey for hours, for days. For ever, maybe.

No. For ever, for sure.

_I’m going to marry this girl. She’s mine. You’re mine. And I’m yours._


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the end of the semester and Rey has some reflective thoughts about her relationship with Ben. And also some random plot happened? (its not rocket science y'all lol have fun with it)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Its un-beta'd so let me live :D

There was nothing more embarrassing than a phone going off in class. Usually, Rey delighted in the process of finding a students phone - she had an uncanny talent for finding out whose it was and in which backpack pocket it was located. Rey had even won “Most Likely to be a Scavenger in the Next Life” in the yearbook last year, a category that Rey suspected had been created specifically for her.

But today, Rey found herself on the opposite side of this embarrassing ordeal. From across the room, her phone was blaring and singing “Electric Feel” into the silent classroom that was taking its fall semester final. And it was mortifying because it was 4th period Honors English Language, which included Bixby Dameron-Storm on its roster. And they were trying their best not to snicker. 

BB must know, Rey thought. They had to. Rey and Ben were not exactly hiding their relationship. Rey had accidentally posted a picture of Ben’s kitchen with the caption “DATE NIGHT” on to her teacher gram in November and didn’t take it down until Rose (bless her) had sent a message about the fatal error. Rey took it down within 15 minutes of the initial post, but the damage had been done. The kids knew that she was dating someone and a few of these kids were visibly and hilariously heartbroken - none more so than Bixby Dameron-Storm. That kid had straight up cried for a whole day about it and been sullen and sour-faced for a week after that. Rey had almost felt bad for them , but she as having too good of a time with their uncle. 

Ben Solo was... something else. Simultaneously intense and gentle, sassy and understanding, tall and shy, with the weirdest yet handsomest face and the most touchable black hair. 

In addition, Ben Solo was probably the best candidate for house husband that Rey had ever encountered. 

Rey was a self-professed slob with no real homemaking skills. She could fix a car engine or a leaky sink no problem, but she struggled to clean toilets.

Ben liked cleaning toilets. Ben loved cooking dinner. And, most importantly, Ben adored Rey.

For someone so gruff and harsh with almost everyone else, Ben showered Rey with an affection she had never known. At first, it had made Rey feel uncomfortable just because of how quickly he seemed to be completely wrapped up in her, but Rey got over that pretty quick. The man sent her gushy, mushy bitmojis of himself, to which Rey immediately teased that bitmojis were super uncool now. He made her dinner at least once a week. When they watched TV, he always suggested rom-coms and he always cuddled her when they did. Rey rolled her eyes at the formulaic plots and terrible dialogue, but it was worth it to see her giant tree man reduced to a puddle of feelings. All the man wanted was love and Rey was willing to give it to him - but she also wanted to watch UFC fights sometimes.

After nearly four months together, Rey had gotten to know Ben on a level that seemed weirdly personal. She knew so much about him, and he about her. They spent nearly every weekend holed up in his beautiful, luxurious apartment thing and it was great until about 4 o’clock on Sunday. 

Because for all his intense care and liquid center, Ben also carried a sadness around him that he refused to talk about. He hid it pretty well most of the time, but 4 o’clock on Sunday triggered depressive and angry outbursts at the world. 

Rey could understand. The “Sunday Scaries” were very real for her, especially after a perfect weekend of doing everything or nothing with Ben. She had to grade, plan, send failure notices - but she liked her job. Ben became a nutcase dreading his upcoming week at work, complaining and pacing and cleaning. 

This was a simultaneously annoying and endearing thing about Ben Solo - his dramatics. In another life, Ben would have made an excellent actor with just how much and how well he could convey his feelings to Rey with a look or an action. His booming, dark voice was made for stage. Rey knew he would never go through with some of the more intense and potentially deeply illegal or morally wrong things he said about his boss - he just needed to be dramatic about nearly everything before he got over it.

And get over it, he did. After his outbursts, he would return to sweet shy Ben who begrudgingly played boardgames with Rey even though he knew he would lose. He would apologize for not asking if she was ready for his rants. He would hold her hand and kiss her gently on the forehead. He would braid her hair and sing to her quietly. He would lavish her with compliments and whisper dirty things into her ear. 

He would take her out to do things. 

Sometimes they would be uneventful, like going to the park on a crisp September day just to look at the leaves and quote Shakespeare at each other. 

Other times would be almost too eventful, like at Thanksgiving when last year’s seniors (now college students) ambushed Rey and Ben while she was teaching him to ice skate. Rey had nearly had an anyurism trying to decide which moniker to introduce Ben as (boyfriend? Manfriend? Partner? Guy I’m Fucking?) before Ben decided to go ahead and say “I’m Ben, I’m Rey’s BAE,” in the most serious voice he could possibly muster. It caused everyone to erupt into laughter and Rey to completely fall in love with him.

And sometimes these outings would end in mayhem, like the time Ben had taken Rey to the Delta Hotel’s annual Pumpkin Carving contest and had to weave in and out of corners and crowds of people to avoid coming into contact with BB and their friends. Then, Rey and Ben migrated to the local (and actually scary) haunted house, they had dashed out of line like bats out of hell when Ben noticed BB and their friends again. And then Rey and Ben had to run into a closet at the Hux’s Halloween Bash when BB and their friends, for some reason, crashed the adults-only party. (At least with this one, though, Rey and Ben got to make out and engage in some really hot closet sex. Ben looked so, so good dressed up as Jedi Master Anakin with the scar and everything and Rey messed up her perfectly applied Padme makeup giving the greatest blowjob of her life.)

Ben and Rey’s relationship was teetering on a line of secrecy that was simulanteously hot and stupid and annoying and Ben had just broken an unwritten, unspoken rule just now by calling her during school hours. During finals week. Either her man was having a nervous breakdown (likely) or breaking up with her (unlikely). 

After grabbing her phone and turning off the ringer, Rey waited with baited breath for the call to go through to voicemail. As she did, she noticed BB steal a sneaky glance at her. 

“Do your work. Focus,” she whispered at the kid, a little aggressivly. BB smirked at her and got directly back to work with a knowing smile on their lips.

What did BB know?

Her phone vibrated in her hand. A new voicemail. If it was really an emergency, Ben would call back. 

Rey looked at the clock. Her prep period was in twenty minutes. She could wait twenty minutes, right?

Wrong. She stepped outside to listen to his voicemail.

“I DID IT REY. I QUIT.” A scream erupted into Rey’s poor ear canal, forcing her to pull the phone away from her head. Dramatic, as usual. “I’M FREE. YES!” A couple of seconds passed and she could hear the blinker in his car. “Fuck....Oh god. Um. Call me back when you can. Love you.”

Click.

She listened to the voicemail again. 

Shit, he had just quit his job. And apparently he loved her. Rey was surprised for a multitude of reasons, but the most jarring was that Ben had just said that he loved her for the first time over the phone.

She stepped back inside, aware that her eyes were wide and wild in shock. She barely registered the last twenty minutes of the exam time, too consumed in her thoughts to even call “Five minutes remaining.” The bell ringing was a shock to both her and the students. Some of them groaned, some of them quickly stood up, and some tried to continue to write past the time.

“Pens down!” Adriana, overachiever that she was, kept writing. “Down, Adriana!” Adriana, teacher’s pet that she was, stopped. “Turn in your final into the box, thank you! See you next year, everyone!” Most of the class shuffled around the room to submit their final and get out of class, shouting back at Rey similar platitudes of holiday well-wishes. 

Adriana, impatient thing that she was, asked, “When will you grade it?” 

Rey shrugged. “The deadline is Monday morning at 8 am, so probably sometime this weekend.”

“You think so?” came BB’s voice from behind Rey, startling her a little.

Rey closed her eyes, attempting not to roll them at the teen. “Um, yes. I do.”

BB nodded and pouted a little, tucking their hands into their pants pockets. “He finally quit, didn’t he?” 

Panicked, Rey’s first instinct was to respond “Who quit what?”

BB pursed their lips at Rey. “Come on, Ms. Sanderson. I’m not an idiot.” 

Rey said nothing, awkwardly refusing to engage in this conversation with BB. When it was clear Rey wouldn’t acknowledge the unspoken truth of the elephant in the room, BB picked up their backpack and slung it over their shoulder. 

“I mean, it should have been me, but Ben’s aight, I guess. See you on Boxing Day, Rey.”

With that, BB waltzed out of the room with the largest shit-eating grin Rey had ever seen and the pit in her stomach expanded. Rey was going to be seeing BB during break because she had stupidly agreed to hang out with Poe and Finn at Ben’s request. 

“Oh, fuck,” Rey hissed into the ether. 

____

“Ben?” Rey called into the void of his apartment after letting herself in with his spare key. The whole entrance hallway was dark but the light from the kitchen shone brightly. The air smelled of yeast and wine and onions and shallots (scents that four months ago Rey would have probably never been able to pick out to save her life.) The man slid into view in front of her with the widest smile, showing off his adorable crooked teeth. Rey’s heart swelled as he bounded toward her to gift her with a quick but loving kiss. He tasted like garlic and chives and root beer.

“Hey, how was the last day?” he asked against her lips, enveloping her in a hug as he did. 

“Great.” Ben released her, still beaming. She noticed his long hair was pulled back into some semblance of a bun. “You...quit?” she asked, trying her best to be supportive.

He stood still for a moment before giving her a little shrug of nonchalance. “Yeah.” The faint beep of his kitchen timer went off and he turned back around to gleefully run to the kitchen. 

Rey dropped her stuff at the door and yelled “What are you making?” as she walked toward the heavenly scents.

“French Onion Soup in breadbowls!” he shouted back. The scene in the kitchen should have looked like barely controlled chaos - instead, it was nearly immaculate as Ben expertly filled his breadbowls with the fragrant liquid. All of the dishes had been done and were in their drying rack, all the ingredients in their mise en place, and the floors and walls were spotless. “I hope you’re hungry.”

Rey was hungry. But she was also worried. 

“Ben...are you okay?” 

He flashed her that roguish smile of his, which made Rey worry more. “Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever been better.”

She leaned on the countertop with her elbows and sighed. “But why?”

Ben turned to her wordlessly and raised his eyebrow. 

“Yeah, you hated it, but what happened?”

He seemed lighter for some reason. His eyes were bright and there was color in his usually pale cheeks. 

“Have you been drinking?” she asked, wary of the answer. 

He seemed unfazed. “Only root beer.” He put the bread bowls into the oven, entirely too chipper for the seriousness of this situation.

This was driving Rey crazy. “So what the hell happened?”

Ben was silent for a moment. He looked at her with those eyes, calm and collected and not dramatic at all. He took a deep breath and began. 

“I’ve been gathering and sending evidence to the FBI about all the illegal shit F.O. gets up to. I made a bargain that I’d be exonerated and not charged for the things I was complicit in during the process. Basically, the Feds have enough to pursue action starting today so I asked the head of the task force if I could quit and she said yes. So I did.” He turned to her and then the dramatics started. “Rey, you should have seen me. All the shit that Snoke put me through, all the shit that I’ve thought about saying to him - I did it. I said it. It flowed out of me like goddamned poetry, Rey.” 

Rey grabbed his wild gesticulating hands as she slowly sobered to what Ben was admitting. 

“What...what do you mean, the FBI?” she asked slowly. “Are you telling me that you're a spy?”

He stared at her for a moment, processing her question. He then giggled and shook his head. “Is that hot or something?”

“Ben, are you a fucking spy or are you not?!” Rey pressed, poking his chest aggressively.

“No,” he said, grabbing her finger. “I’m a glorified accountant who upon meeting you,” he kissed her hand, “decided to say ‘fuck you’ to the life I had to be better.”

Rey blinked, confused. Sometimes Ben said things and only he fully understood what he meant. 

“You...you what now.” She retracted her arm gingerly and slowly crossed her arms. “Explain, please.”

Ben adjusted his apron and his hair. “You know I’d been with First Order for years, right?” She nodded. “And you know how terrible they treated me.” She nodded. “I had all but resigned myself to this terrible job, ruining people's lives and slowly allowing my soul to be eaten alive.” He looked down at the ground and then back to her, his beautiful brown eyes clear and soft as he scanned her face. “And then you called me into your classroom. And then you asked me to put up a poster. And fell into my arms. And let me make you dinner. And you called me out on my bullshit. And kissed me.”

Rey recalled these events from four months before. God, he really did seem like a shell back then - much angrier, much sadder. Ben had blossomed before her and she hadn’t really noticed. 

“As soon as you left that night, I called the FBI tipline. I don’t think I slept that night because I was talking to every conceivable person about it.”

Rey brought her hands up to her face and rubbed her eyes. This was a lot to process, especially for someone who had just ended fall semester.

“What the actual fuck, Ben?” she screamed. “And you didn’t tell me?!”

He was silent as his thoughts ran across his expressive eyebrows and his lips twitched into a sheepish grimace. 

Rey had a realization. “You...before me, you didn’t usually get that worked up about your job, didn’t you?”

He shook his head a bit, some of that glorious black hair falling into his face. 

“Why?” she asked. Why did you do it? But looking at him, Rey knew deep in her bones why he did it. She just wondered if he was going to say it.

And Ben was nothing if not brave and honest and a little bit of a social idiot.

“Because I want to be my best self for you. That place was robbing me of me, which was suddenly not okay since I decided that night that I belong to you.”

He said it so matter of factly - like it was the weather. 

Rey sobbed, unable to control the tears that began to stream down her face.

“Oh, shit,” he said with a grin, enveloping her in a hug. 

“No, no, no, it’s okay,” said Rey as she wiped her tears on his shirt. “It's just a lot to process?”

He squeezed her tighter. “...that’s fair,” he said with a little laugh.

They stood in silence for about 15 seconds before Rey asked, “Does F.O. know you did this?,” concern and anxiety rushing through her.

“I mean, maybe?” Ben said with a shrug. “But its not my problem anymore. Or until I’m called into testify, if that happens.” He pulled back and got a good look at her and wiped some tears from her face. “They can’t get me, Rey. Its not like its the mob, just some asshole venture capitalists.” Rey smiled and chortled a bit, sniffing as she did. 

“I”m really proud of you, Ben.” 

A grin bloomed across his face, causing it to wrinkle in that weird, endearing way it did when he couldn’t control his feelings, the one where his eyes squinted. Rey’s favorite.

“Arn’t you going to ask me what I’m going to do now?”

Rey rolled her eyes. “If you say we’re going to Disneyland, I’m going to leave you and never return.”

He pouted. “One day, Sanderson, I will take you and you will love it.” 

She threw up her arms. “Fine. What are you going to do?”

He gestured to his kitchen like some hot, young, male Vanna White. “I’m going to cook.” He was beaming like he’d just announced he was pregnant.

Rey looked around the room, confused. “...like you always do?” She rocked back onto her heels and shifted her weight to one leg. 

“No, no,” he said through a giggle. “I’m going to film myself in this beautiful kitchen making excellent food and feeding it to my gorgeous Rey and I’m going to take those recipes in that old ass box and make book of them and share them with the world.” 

He sometimes got a little hard to follow with the stream of consciousness type of expression, but once Rey caught up she started to get a little miffed. She blinked a couple of times before she asked, in her most patronizing voice - 

“Do you have enough money to do that, Ben?” She waltzed around the kitchen, rubbing arms as she did. “This apartment-,”

“Condo.”

“-whatever, is beautiful, but it’s expensive! You have this...this lifestyle.”

Ben crossed his arms in a huff. “Yeah. Bix said it’s ‘bad and bougie.’”

“It’s high maintenance. Where are you going to post these videos, hmm? Youtube?” 

“Yeah?” Ben was looking at her like she had lost her brain cells. 

Rey had had this conversation with a near constant stream of teens who thought that their best career option in life was to become an internet influencer. She had to beat it into their heads that trying to “make it” on the internet was hard, grueling, thankless work and that maybe, just maybe, with some luck they could actually make a career out of it. Rey couldn’t believe she was going to have this conversation with Benjamin Yeshua Solo. 

“It’ll be fine, Rey. I have a plan.”

“How the hell can you guarantee that, Ben?” Rey found herself yelling at him, unable to stop herself.

Ben remained fairly unaffected as he put on his oven gloves. “Why are you yelling at me?” He was so calm about this, it was unnerving to Rey. Her heart was beating faster, the pit in her stomach grew.

“Because, Ben, I don’t think you’ve thought this through.”

“I’ve thought it through. Everyday. For four months.” The timer went off. Ben opened the oven and produced soup and breadbowls from it.

Goddamn it, they smelled good.

“Remember our third date?” Ben asked, placing the food to cool on the stove top. “You said that you teach not necessarily because you like it, but because you have to. That you can’t turn it off.”

Rey blinked. She had definitely thought those things. Had she actually said them? Out loud? To Ben?

And he had remembered?

“I thought about that for days afterward. And I realized that I can’t turn off the cooking and the baking and the thinking about you. So I made the decision to change my whole life. It’s scary, but I’m going to do it. I’d like your support, but I’m doing it anyway because I need to.”

Rey sputtered. He was so well spoken and was so calm and she was just a ball of emotions. “This is stupid,” she said, not meaning it.

“Yeah, but that’s fine,” Ben agreed. “Life is stupid.”

Rey sat down on one of the stools. “Fine, right, but I’m just so mad that you kept this to yourself. Why didn’t you tell me? About any of it?”

Ben raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips in annoyance. “Let’s think. ‘Oh, hey, Rey,’” he began, doing a weird impression of himself, “‘I know we literally just met but I think I’m going to sell out my company to the FBI and dedicate my life to cooking because I’m in love with you even though you’re BB’s teacher and, as previously mentioned, we just met?’” He threw his oven mitts on the counter. “How would that have gone down, Rey?”

“It would have been nice to know that man I love was risking so much for such a stupid reason!”

“You are not a stupid reason to do something!’ Ben was getting worked up now. “You are the best reason to do something.”

“I’m not worth losing a job!”

“Rey, you’re worth losing my life for!”

They both stopped yelling for a moment, breathing heavy and emotions filling the space between them.

“You love me?” Ben asked, finally catching up to what Rey had said.

She rolled her eyes again. “Yes, you idiot, I love you.”

“Great, because I love you, too.”

“I know.” She shrugged. “The voicemail.” 

“Oh.” He was so quiet. “So I did say it.”

Rey finally realized what he had said, too. “I’m worth losing your life for?”

“Yeah, Rey,” Ben scooted closer to her. “I’d die for you. I mean, I’d complain the whole time, but I would.”

She playfully shoved him away and then pulled him by his apron into a kiss, slow and explorative. Rey could, should, and would kiss this man until the day she died. 

“I knew before you said so,” she breathed after breaking from his mouth. 

“Hmm?” he happily grunted.

“It was hard to miss with all the food and kisses.” She smiled into another kiss and ran her hands along his torso, feeling how solid and real he was beneath her fingertips. Sometimes she couldn’t believe it, that this man wanted her.

“You only put up with me for the food and the sex, huh?” he joked half-heartedly. 

“The sex is pennies compared to the food,” she said with a jaunty giggle. “But I do love you. Even though you’re dumb sometimes.” She pushed some of his hair from his face and dotted the beauty marks across his face and neck. “You’re sweet, and kind, and honest.”

“I mean, except for the whole ‘I’m a spy’ thing,” he interrupted.

She breathed in all the patience she could muster. “Not helping, sir.” 

“Fair enough.”

“I forgot what I was going to say next.”

“I believe you were telling me how amazing I am.”

“Sush, funny guy.” She grabbed his hands and held them delicately. “You actually are funny. And gentle. And you pull me out of the house. And I can’t turn you off, either. I love you a lot, Ben. I think I love you more than anything in my life.”

“More than teaching?” His eyes went soft as they looked at her soul. She stroked his cheek and breathed him in, that woodsy Armani Code mixed with yeast scent that was so uniquely Ben.

“You’re the only thing that comes more naturally than teaching.”

He pulled her in by the back of the neck, their lips locking and tongues grazing against each other. Rey was so happy in this moment she felt her chest bursting, her soul glowing, electricity shooting from her fingertips into his warm skin. 

They kissed for minutes with only the sound of the vent hood as their background music. And when they broke from their kiss, they smiled at each other.

“BB knows about us, by the way,” Rey said after a moment.

“Yeah, they texted me about it earlier. They say they have a lot of questions for Boxing Day.”

Rey snorted. “I imagine we will not be answering some of them?”

“Of course not.” Ben touched a bread bowl with his asbestos hands. “Hungry?”

“Starving.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for bearing with me these months as I worked on this. I literally had this last chapter done except the last lines since the New Year - but quarantine got me to just bite the bullet. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this fluffy nonsense! Stay strong my babies!

_One of the new kids recognized me on her for you page!!_

The text message came through as Ben was editing this week’s B-roll footage of oozy, gooey, cheese pulls. His deadline was always 3 o clock on Friday so that he and Rey had the weekend together, and it was coming close. For nearly 9 months, Ben had worked diligently to craft a space for himself in this new and sparkly online world of cooking. Rey had been right - it was a lot of work (and more work than he anticipated) to make a name for himself, but it had all been worth it. Just last month, Ben had been offered his first sponsorship with a make-a-meal service and his follower count had boomed. Right now, Ben was somehow sitting at over a million followers on TikTok (which he literally had learned about last May and kind of hated), 800 thousand on YouTube, and over 100 thousand on instagram. He refused to get a snapchat, but Rey had talked him into getting a Patreon.

“You need a steady form of income, this is the way to do it,” she had said last week.

“Rey, I’m getting my inheritance in 3 years. I don’t need a steady income.”

“Just do it, please.”

And he had. Even though it was at this point bringing in a whopping 90 bucks a month. It offered Ben a chance to interact with his fans (which was the weirdest part of his job). Overall, he liked the limited interactions he engaged with, responding to only people who had something fun to say and straight up ignoring some of the creepy things that some of them said, which included but not limited to:

  * Wow those hands choke me daddy
  * You can tell from how he handles that dough how he handles a woman i hope he’s single
  * @kylorenjamin could rearrange my guts and i’d say thank you

Along with blocking these horrific and terrifying thirst comments, that’s when Ben starting including Rey in his videos in a bigger way and expressly stating that she was his girlfriend. His little community of commenters were supportive as all get out and they usually commented on the recipes and their successes. But the most common comment on every video across all the platforms was along the lines of _THAT VOICE. ITS THE BEST THING I’VE EVER HEARD_. Ben had never in a million years thought that his voice was an attractive quality about him - he thought his voice sounded like it was permanently submerged underwater. However, he had asked Rey about it in the summer once those comments started showing up while she was reading Persuasion (her favorite) for the sixth time in her life.

“Are you fucking kidding me, Solo?” Rey had said. “Your voice is literally an aphrodisiac.”

This statement had sent Ben into another dimension. “Really?” he had asked, genuinely surprised. He had looked over at her Rey, who smirked at him in a way that said God-you’re-such-a-dumbass-but-you’re-MY- dumbass.

“You could read that recipe book you’re writing I’d probably get wetter than a rainforest.” Later, in the bedroom, he had done exactly that and the results were exactly what Rey had predicted.

Ben’s videos never showed anyone’s face, only torso and hands with his voice-over instructions that had become snarkier and snarkier as the videos went on. In the span of these months, he had gone from a complete noob to one of the internet’s rising stars in the little cooking corner. He’d been happier in this time than pretty much any time he could remember.

It was because of Rey, mostly. She was his light when he was in darkness. She fixed all his leaky faucets. She kissed and fucked and loved him so fiercely and fully. Ben found that the hole in his soul was being filled the longer that she stuck around. Not because she completed him, but because she deserved him to be complete. And sure, she had problems closing cabinet doors and doing laundry, she more than made up for it by being his most ardent cheerleader and most loyal fan. And every time his head got too big, she would knock him down a peg just by mentioning the fact that she willingly worked with kids to change the future and was not paid enough for it. She always did it gently and in an unpatronizing way, but Ben always could and should remember that he was making internet videos and she was a fucking teacher. It was no contest who had the harder job in his mind. She had a seemingly unending well of strength that Ben could not fathom at times. And for some reason, she was always kind to people, even in her worst moods.

But she was so cute when she was mad. Her face scrunched up and she would get adorably and raunchily very British. Usually she just called her problem kids and their idiot parents “numpties” and Ben usually giggled at her. But once she had been driving and some person would cut her off and slammed on their breaks. Rey had shouted “YOU BLEEDING CUNT GET ABSOLUTELY FUCKED,” and Ben had literally gasped like a grandmother. And he had to stop Rey from getting out of the car to fight the driver. Kind to everyone except whilst on the road - his spitfire woman.

Ben uploaded his videos and published his pictures (the most tedious part of his new job) around 2:30 and began making dinner. He’d been waiting to make this dish for a long time. He’d really had to make sure that he was thinking with his whole being, not just his gut, to make sure that she was ready. Ben had been ready since their first kiss, but Rey was a skittish thing. Her whole life had basically been misery until college, riddled with people who kept leaving her. Ben was astounded that after all that she had been through in her youth that she turned around and gave love and life so willingly to her students, 150 new ones each year. But it had taken Ben ages to convince her that he wasn’t going anywhere and that she should move in with him. Thank god she did, because now he got to go to bed and wake up with her everyday.

He was in the middle of rolling the pasta when she walked in the door around 4:30.

“Smells amazing!” she called from the hallway, dropping her stuff in her bin. They’d implemented this bin at the door thing after Ben had tripped and fell on his face, nearly breaking his nose. It was their first real fight about how untidy she was and how he was too OCD.

“I’m just saying, pick up your shit so its not in doorways!” he had yelled.

“Fuck off, Mr. Perfect!” she had snarkily screamed back.

“I just want to not trip over your fucking bags, Rey!”

“And I want you to stop being so patronizing when you ask me to clean, Ben! I’m more willing to do it if you just say ‘Hey, pick it up!’”

“THAT’S WHAT I’M DOING NOW!”

They had had some amazingly hot ‘I temporarily hate you’ sex immediately after. And then discussed the bin thing. They’d not had a fight ever since.

Her pitter pattering steps entered the kitchen and stopped. “What is that?” she asked, wary of the small present on the island. He grinned. Everything was so far going to plan, but Ben’s heart was beating out of his chest and he felt like he was going to throw up everywhere as soon as he started to speak. He was a jittery mess by he did his best to hide his nerves.

“Open it and see.” The sound of her ripping open the little package was almost gleeful.

“It’s not my birthday,” she stated in delight.

“I know.”

“And it’s not our anniversary, right?”

“That’s correct, sweetheart.”

“Shut up, you sarcastic son of a ….perfume?”

Ben finally turned around to look at her. She was dressed simply in jeans and a gray sweater, her hair half up and half down, and basically no makeup apart from mascara. Her eyes were bright with surprised and fondness. “I’m a son of a perfume?” Ben saucily asked.

“Ben, you shouldn’t have,” she breathed softly, looking completely unsure of what to do with the small pink box in her hand.

Ben leaned back on the countertop. “You wear it,” he offered after a moment of watching her inspect the box in silence. She inhaled through her nose, nodded, and widened her eyes.

“Yeah, I figured. But...why?”

“I can’t give the love of my life a gift?” He stood up and began walking toward her. He dusted his hands on his apron to get the excess flour off.

She scratched her head. “I mean...I guess you can, but this is too much, Ben.” She finally had read the brand. “Coach?” she asked, incredulous. “Are you serious?”

He breathed in deeply and ran his hands across her stomach to her sides while she gazed at the box. “Put it on?” he asked. “I want to see if I’m right.” She eyes him suspiciously, but did as he requested.

“Right about what?” she asked as she sprayed herself gingerly on the neck and let it dry. Ben gazed at her scrunched up face and felt himself grinning like an idiot. She raised her eyebrows at him with deep skepticism. “What are you grinning at?”

He then kissed her soundly on the mouth, breathing her in. He moved from her mouth to her jaw, down into her neck and hair - crunching his body over to inhale her scent. _This was it_, he thought, _This is the one_.

“What is that super schnozz smelling?” Rey asked with a giggle as his nose nudged her neck.

“You, but amplified,” he whispered into her hair. He pulled back from her. “Confession - I bought it more for me than for you.”

She rolled her eyes a bit, but then settled on his face dreamily. “Wow. Such selflessness.”

“You would not believe how many Sephoras I went to trying to find this again.”

She blinked. “Again.” The statement was a question.

He linked his hands behind her back. “This is the perfume you were wearing that night of the back to school dance last year.” _The night I first kissed you_, he thought, _the first night of my new life_.

A laugh escaped Rey’s mouth, small and awkward. He eyes softened and she smiled wide at him, carding her fingers through his hair. “Ben, you are such a sap. Why do I put up with you?” She sighed dreamily.

“Because” he said as he pulled her close, “I make you delicious as fuck food.” He kissed her again, smiling against her lips.

“Isn’t that the truth,” she said with a huff. “What’s for dinner?” He grinned and produced the recipe card from his pocket, holding it up next to them. She looked over at it and snatched it out of his fingertips to read it. She began grinning from ear to ear. “Finally!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been impatiently waiting for this one for a year.”

“Let’s hope it lives up to the hype,” he said as he released from her. “It’ll be about 5 minutes.”

“Great, because I’m starving.” Her hands lingered on his arms for a moment.

“When are you not, sweetheart?” he drolled.

“Shut it, your worshipfulness.” Ben sometimes regretted telling Rey about his family lineage and that technically he was a pretender to the throne of not one, but two, defunct European principalities. But most of the time, her little jabs were loving and hilarious. “I’m going to pee.”

“Don’t fall in.” She flipped him the backwards V with a laugh and walked down the hall. Ben’s nerves returned. He really hoped she was ready for this.

The island was completely set up by the time she got back - wine glasses, chargers, bread, and plates full of green pasta. Rey walked in, unfazed by the fancy decor. Ben was already seated for her.

“I’m going to inhale this,” she said as she sat. She picked up the fork like a caveman and began to shovel the food into her mouth.

Ben shrugged. “Go for it.” And she did, moaning as the pasta touched her tongue. Her eyes fluttered back into her head and she practically convulsed with pleasure. She opened her eyes and glared at him. Ben glared back and raised his eyebrows at her. She chewed the pistachio pesto pasta slowly, savoring it. Then, very abruptly, she got up from her seat and darted toward Ben, making a beeline for his lap. She straddled him, wrapping her arms around his neck. She finished chewing and swallowed the food. And then she kissed him with her whole body, grinding against him like she was trying to make sure that he was real. She nipped at his lips and Ben responded in kind, pulling her in by the crook of her neck. They rocked together, passionately kissing for a good minute before they both had to come up for air.

“Jesus christ, fuck,” Rey breathed, leaning back on the island. “I get it.”

“Hmmm?” Ben hummed, a question.

“Why Poe kissed you.”

“Hmmm,” Ben hummed, an answer. He nodded and blinked at her.

“I mean,” she continued, clearly not paying attention to the words coming out of her mouth, “It’s powerful stuff. I’d probably say yes to marriage right now.” She laughed, a little joke. Or was it? _Time to have courage, Solo_.

“Do you mean it?” Ben asked, warily.

The smile on her face faded just a bit as she processed what he said. “Huh?”

He took a deep breath. “If I asked you to marry me, would you say yes?”

Her eyes focused on his face and scanned it, looking for jest or humor or cruelty. He knew she wouldn’t find any. Ben wore his emotions on his face clearly. Her eyebrows scrunched together adorably and Ben’s heart swelled. She pursed her lips slightly, like she was thinking about whether this a joke or if this was real. He nodded at her, his eyes started to well. She smiled at him softly and returned his nod. The breath Ben hadn’t realized he’d been holding escaped his lips. He reached into his pants pocket.

“Ben-,” Rey gasped. He pulled out his grandmother’s ring - a small, simple thing made of gold and single embedded diamond. Rey pushed his shoulder in disbelief. “Ben! What the hell!?”

He held it up for her to look at. Her eyes darted between it and him as the joke turned into a blissful reality. His hand was shaking, but his voice was surprisingly steady as he said “I’m ready when you are.”

Tears streamed from her eyes and she smiled wide, uncontrollably. She grabbed the ring from him and slipped it onto her left ring finger. “It goes on the other hand,” Ben said.

“Shut up,” she said, pulling him by his shirt into another brief kiss, the taste of the pasta lingering on their tongues.

“I love you, Rey,” he said, crying now.

“I know,” Rey said back. “I’m feeling weirdly calm about agreeing to spending my life with you. Is that weird?”

“Nah,” Ben answered. “Best to trust it.”

She kissed him again. “Easier than teaching.”

He pushed her hair out of her face to gaze at her face full of freckles. “Easier than cooking.”

“OH MY GOD.”

Ben and Rey swiveled their heads around to see BB standing tall in the kitchen doorway, mouth agape and backpack thudding to the floor.

“Hiya, Bix,” Rey said awkwardly through happy tears.

BB’s eyes darted from Rey to her hand to Ben. “Did you..?” BB asked as they pointed to Ben.

Ben nodded and laughed happily. BB’s face lit up into a massive smile. “Holy shit!”

“Language, Bix,” Rey and Ben droned together.

“Sorry, but...this is awesome!” BB ran over to the both of them and engulfed them in a hug. Rey and Ben welcomed it, but Ben suddenly had a realization.

“Bix, why are you here?” he asked, trying to convey his confusion.

BB stopped hugging them and pulled back. “Um,” they said, “It’s the 15th?”

Ben sighed, as did Rey. Fuck, it _was_ the 15th. BB would be living here for the next week while Poe and Finn went to Australia. BB shrugged shyly, clearly embarrassed about the situation.

“I mean, I could probably stay at home by myself for the night-,”

“No, stay!” Rey interrupted BB, sliding off of Ben’s lap. “Stay. Drop off your stuff in your room and come back for some pasta.”

BB glanced down at the green pasta and frowned. “I’m not touching the ‘kiss-the-chef’ pasta. You got Pizza Rolls?”

Ben rolled his eyes. “...yeah.” “Great. Could you pop those in the oven while I gouge my eyes out from what I just saw?”

Rey playfully pushed BB. “Shut up, you little snot.”

“I won’t, _Auntie_ Rey.”

Ben laughed. And looked at his kid and the love of his life. “I love you both, you know,” he said with a grin.

“I hope in different ways,” BB said.

Rey’s guffaw at the kid’s comment was loud and broke Ben from his lovey-dovey stupor. “Go away before I make you eat real food.” BB hissed like a cat and ran away.

Rey turned to Ben and said, “We’re never having kids, right?” half serious, half wistful.

“You get a new set of them each year and one BB is enough, I think,” Ben answered, putting his hands on her hips and breathing her in. “But we have some time to change our minds.” They had forever. And Ben was totally, one hundred percent okay with that.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! This is super fun, but I literally am I teacher and I am so busy so please bear with me trying to write this thing :D


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